Two stories have occupied my thoughts this week.  The first came during our morning time reading in Character Calendar about St Lucian, whose scriptural expertise paved the way for St. Jerome to produce the latin Vulgate.  He 'labored abundantly for the edification of others, but could not prevent being sometimes judged and despised by others," reads his biography.  The author goes on to explain that history has largely forgtten St Lucian and given St.Jerome the credit for the Vulgate we have today. We were challenged in the day's reading to ask ourselves if it bothers us when others are credited for hard work we have done or made possible. 

A different spin on that question came in the form of a story told around the prison camp fire by the peasant Karataev in War and Peace. The old man, a gentle, working class philospher told the story,

"…of an old merchant who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once to the Nizhni fair with a companion- a rich merchant.

Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning his companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife was found under the old merchant's pillow. He was tried, knouted, and his nostrils having been torn off, "all in due form" as Karataev put it, he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.

"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "ten years or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as he should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one night the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among them. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they had sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: 'What are you being punished for, grandfather?'- 'I, my dear brothers,' said he, 'am being punished for my own and other men's sins. But I have not killed anyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much property. 'And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. 'I don't grieve for myself,' he says, 'God, it seems, has chastened me. Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,' and the old man began to weep.

Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had killed the other merchant. 'Where did it happen, Daddy?' he said. 'When, and in what month?' He asked all about it and his heart began to ache. So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet! 'You are perishing because of me, Daddy,' he says. 'It's quite true, lads, that this man,' he says, 'is being tortured innocently and for nothing! I,' he says, 'did that deed, and I put the knife under your head while you were asleep. Forgive me, grandfather,' he says, 'for Christ's sake!'

Karataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew the logs together.

"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His sight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears. Well, and what do you think, dear friends?" Karataev continued, his face brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story: "What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the authorities. 'I have taken six lives,' he says (he was a great sinner), 'but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don't let him suffer because of me.' So he confessed and it was all written down and the papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the papers all in due form- the authorities I mean- time passed. The affair reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar's decree came: to set the merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. 'Where is the old man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from the Tsar!' so they began looking for him," here Karataev's lower jaw trembled, "but God had already forgiven him- he was dead! That's how it was, dear fellows!" Karataev concluded and sat for a long time silent, gazing before him with a smile."

Teresa of Avila and other Carmelites have written extensively about unjust accusations, insisting odds are that we have also had good attributed to us which we did not merit.  Further, if we are being unjustly criticized it is also often true that we are guilty of other wrongs which have mercifully gone unnoticed. 

These have been challenging concepts for me. I am a melancholic by nature, keenly – often, overly – focused on justice.  As is so often the case, God's ways are not ours however, and we rarely consider things from as many angles as we ought.   The old man, without in any way approving of man's wrongdoing,  knew all things went through God's hands first. The court had sentenced him falsely, but he was in truth, convicted by his own personal sins.  He knew his fate was not actually in the hands of men, but ultimately of God.  A more perfect trust in Divine Providence would be hard to imagine. Likewise we are assured St Lucian was quite content knowing God was aware of his efforts in this world and that any accolades accrued here are worthless in comparison to those in the next.   

It all comes out in the wash is the gist.  Easier said than done, no doubt. I am grateful for the inspiring examples literature and history provide. We are encouraged to focus more on how our things look in the eyes of eternity than on the approval or condemnation of our contemporaries, whose judgement can never be omnipotent.